1.
Richmond, California
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Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7,1905, under the McLaughlin Administration, Richmond was the largest city in the United States served by a Green Party mayor. As of the 2010 U. S. Census, the population is at 103,710. The largest, Richmond, Virginia, is the namesake of the California city, the Ohlone Indians were the first inhabitants of the Richmond area, settling an estimated 5,000 years ago. The name Richmond appears to predate actual incorporation by more than fifty years, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad had its terminus at Richmond. The first post office opened in 1900, Richmond was founded and incorporated in 1905, carved out of Rancho San Pablo, from which the nearby town of San Pablo inherited its name. Until the enactment of prohibition in 1919, the city had the largest winery in the world, in the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan was active in the city. In 1930 the Ford Motor Company opened a plant called Richmond Assembly Plant which moved to Milpitas in the 1960s. The old Ford plant has been a National Historic Place since 1988, the city was a small town at that time, until the onset of World War II which brought on a rush of migrants and a boom in the industrial sector. Standard Oil set up here in 1901, including a what is now the Chevron Richmond Refinery and tank farm. There is a pier into San Francisco Bay south of Point Molate for oil tankers, the western terminus of the Santa Fe Railroad was established in Richmond with ferry connections at Ferry Point in the Brickyard Cove area of Point Richmond to San Francisco. Many of these lived in specially constructed houses scattered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including Richmond, Berkeley. A specially built rail line, the Shipyard Railway, transported workers to the shipyards, kaisers Richmond shipyards built 747 Victory and Liberty ships for the war effort, more than any other site in the U. S. The city broke many records and even built one Liberty ship in a five days. On average the yards could build a ship in thirty days, the medical system established for the shipyard workers at the Richmond Field Hospital eventually became todays Kaiser Permanente HMO. It remained in operation until 1993 when it was replaced by the modern Richmond Medical Center hospital, Point Richmond was originally the commercial hub of the city, but a new downtown arose in the center of the city. It was populated by many department stores such as Kress, J. C. Penney, Sears, Macys, during the war the population increased dramatically and peaked at around 120,000 by the end of the war. Once the war ended the workers were no longer needed

2.
San Francisco Bay
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San Francisco Bay is a shallow estuary in the U. S. state of California. It is surrounded by a region known as the San Francisco Bay Area, dominated by the large cities San Francisco, Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California and it then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay. The bay was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2,2013, the bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles, depending on which sub-bays, estuaries, wetlands, and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay measures 3 to 12 miles wide east-to-west and it is the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas. Later, wetlands and inlets were filled in, reducing the Bays size since the mid-19th century by as much as one third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the Bays size, despite its value as a waterway and harbor, many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels was often dumped onto the wetlands, from the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The idea was, and remains, controversial, there are five large islands in San Francisco Bay. Alameda, the largest island, was created when a shipping lane was cut in 1901 and it is now predominantly a bedroom community. Angel Island was known as Ellis Island West because it served as the point for immigrants from East Asia. It is now a park accessible by ferry. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, attached to the north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island, site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. From the Second World War until the 1990s, both served as military bases and are now being redeveloped. Isolated in the center of the Bay is Alcatraz, the site of the federal penitentiary. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, but the complex is a popular tourist site, despite its name, Mare Island in the northern part of the bay is a peninsula rather than an island. During the last ice age, the now filled by the bay was a large linear valley with small hills

3.
Tract housing
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Tract housing developments are found in world suburb developments that were modeled on the Levittown concept and sometimes encompass large areas of dozens of square miles. In addition, as all homes in the development will be built at the same time, components such as roof trusses, plumbing trees, and stair systems are often prefabricated in factories and installed on-site. This allows builders to offer prices, which in turn can make homes affordable to a larger percentage of the population. As with other construction, such reversal may take advantage of beneficial orientation relative to sun, wind, the concept of tract housing is occasionally mocked in American popular culture as the basis of suburbia, a notable example is the song Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds. Nonetheless, the use of housing in new American suburban residential development remains popular. In Europe, the majority of subdivided landstrips are built in the type of row housing development areas, the model of tract housing had been used widely in the history of land reclamation in the 17th to 19th century, especially in the Netherlands and inner-European bogs. Modern tract housing had been used for towns in the 19th to 20th century. A tract housing area of this type is known in German as a Kolonie. Housing estate List of house styles List of house types Railroad apartment Shotgun house

4.
Marina Bay, Richmond, California
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Marina Bay is located in Richmonds protected Inner Harbor. It was developed in the mid-1980s in an effort to clean up what had been up to point the defunct World War II-era Kaiser Shipyards. Marina Bay was planned as an up-scale residential waterfront community with apartments, condominiums, townhouses, the area is also home to many retail and light-industry businesses. The city considers it one of its success stories and uses it as an template for other projects, the area hosts an 850-berth marina. Marina Bay Yacht Harbor is also known as Richmond Marina Bay and was built by the City of Richmond in the early 1980s, the berths are divided into four sections along the north shore, D-Dock, E-Dock, F-Dock & G-Dock. Berth sizes range from 26 long to 61 long with several end-ties available up to 100 long, a launch ramp is available in the northwest corner of the marina. The marina Entrance Channel was dredged to -12 mean lower low water in the Fall of 2011, the marina basin itself is 12 to 18 deep at MLLW, a legacy of the time when the basin was Shipyard #2 and used to construct Liberty Ships during World War II. On the northeast corner of the bay is one of the few clubs in the East Bay that offer monthly memberships. Dedicated on October 14,2000, the hosts the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park to honor the contributions of the American women labor force during World War II. The area the monument stands in was known as Kaiser Shipyard #2 where women worked alongside men to construct military transport. The monument is a straight pathway containing inscriptions and photographs depicting that era, the length of the path is approximately the length of a Liberty Ships keel and contains three sculptures to abstractly represent the ships bow, steam stack, and stern. The former Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant has been transformed into a complex that houses light-industry, a restaurant/bar. Shimada Friendship park is a monument to Shimada, Japan which is one of Richmonds sister cities, City of Richmond Marina Bay Neighborhood Council Rosie the Riveter Trails for Richmond Action Committee

5.
Pollution
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Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution, Air pollution has always accompanied civilizations. Pollution started from prehistoric times when man created the first fires, metal forging appears to be a key turning point in the creation of significant air pollution levels outside the home. The burning of coal and wood, and the presence of horses in concentrated areas made the cities the cesspools of pollution. The Industrial Revolution brought an infusion of untreated chemicals and wastes into local streams that served as the water supply, king Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London in 1272, after its smoke became a problem. But the fuel was so common in England that this earliest of names for it was acquired because it could be carted away from some shores by the wheelbarrow and it was the industrial revolution that gave birth to environmental pollution as we know it today. London also recorded one of the extreme cases of water quality problems with the Great Stink on the Thames of 1858. Pollution issues escalated as population growth far exceeded view ability of neighborhoods to handle their waste problem, reformers began to demand sewer systems, and clean water. In 1870, the conditions in Berlin were among the worst in Europe. There were no toilets in the streets or squares. Visitors, especially women, often became desperate when nature called, in the public buildings the sanitary facilities were unbelievably primitive. As a metropolis, Berlin did not emerge from a state of barbarism into civilization until after 1870. Chicago and Cincinnati were the first two American cities to enact laws ensuring cleaner air in 1881, as historian Martin Melosi notes, The generation that first saw automobiles replacing the horses saw cars as miracles of cleanliness. By the 1940s, however, automobile-caused smog was an issue in Los Angeles. Other cities followed around the country early in the 20th century. Extreme smog events were experienced by the cities of Los Angeles and Donora, Pennsylvania in the late 1940s, Air pollution would continue to be a problem in England, especially later during the industrial revolution, and extending into the recent past with the Great Smog of 1952. Awareness of atmospheric pollution spread widely after World War II, with fears triggered by reports of fallout from atomic warfare. Then a non-nuclear event, The Great Smog of 1952 in London and this prompted some of the first major modern environmental legislation, The Clean Air Act of 1956

6.
Clapper rail
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The clapper rail is a member of the rail family, Rallidae. The taxonomy for this species is confusing and still being determined, the Ridgways rail and the mangrove rail have been recently split. The clapper rail and its subspecies are found along the Atlantic Ocean coasts, the clapper rail is found along the Atlantic coasts of the U. S. East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Eastern Mexico, and some Caribbean islands, populations are stable on the East Coast of the U. S. although the numbers of this bird have declined due to habitat loss. Rallus c. scottii Rallus c. waynei The clapper rail is a bird that rarely flies. It is grayish brown with a chestnut breast and a noticeable white patch under the tail. These birds eat crustaceans, aquatic insects, and small fish and they search for food while walking, sometimes probing with their long bills, in shallow water or mud. The twig nest is placed low in mangrove roots, and 3-7 purple-spotted buff eggs are laid, rails by Taylor and van Perlo, ISBN 90-74345-20-4 Clapper rail bird sound

7.
Rallus longirostris
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The mangrove rail is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is found in Central and South America and it was formerly considered conspecific with the clapper rail. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical forests and coastal saline lagoons. It is threatened by habitat loss, gruitag. org, Gruiformes Taxon Advisory Group Regional Collection Plan. Birds of Venezuela by Hilty, ISBN 0-7136-6418-5 ffrench, Richard, a Guide to the Birds of Trinidad and Tobago

8.
Stege Marsh
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Stege Marsh, also known as the South Richmond Marshes, is a tidal marshland wetlands area in Richmond, California in western Contra Costa County. The marsh is the delta at the mouth of Baxter or Stege Creek, the marsh is opposite Meeker Slough from where Meeker Slough Creek drains into Campus Bay, which is a part of the Richmond Inner Harbor of the San Francisco Bay. The site was polluted by a UC Berkeley Field Station and a Zeneca sulfuric acid manufacturing center. The marsh is so polluted that the San Francisco Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board named it a hot spot. The contamination includes dangerous levels of chemicals and organic compounds such as Arsenic, mercury. RFS Remediation and Restoration Project Fact Sheet Panoramic View of Stege Marsh area

9.
Baxter Creek
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Baxter Creek or Stege Creek, is a three-branch creek in Richmond and El Cerrito, California, United States forming the Baxter Creek watershed. The creek has three sources and flows from the Berkeley Hills to Stege Marsh and the San Francisco Bay, the Baxter Creek watershed at-large has 10 sources. The creek has been culverted over the years since the Rancho San Pablo. Residents missed the creek when it disappeared under the asphalt and formed Friends of Baxter Creek and this group has aided in the restoration of several portions of the creek. Baxter Creek Park, Poinsett Park, and Booker T. Anderson Park are now in a natural riparian condition, though the Anderson Park portion has been plagued by litter. The Ohlone Greenway bicycle and pedestrian path has its terminus at Baxter Creek Gateway Park. The origins of the name Baxter Creek is unknown, but historians believe it to be from a family once owned land in the area. Stege is from Richard Stege and Bishop comes from Thomas Bishop, who once owned large tracts of land in the area

10.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding

11.
Restoration ecology
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Restoration ecology emerged as a separate field in ecology in the 1980s. Restoration ecology is commonly used for the academic study of the process. E. O. Wilson, a biologist states that, Here is the means to end the great extinction spasm, the next century will, I believe, be the era of restoration in ecology. Restoration ecology is the study of ecological restoration. Estimates of the current extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times more than the normal rate, for many people biological diversity, has an intrinsic value that humans have a responsibility towards other living things, and an obligation to future generations. On a more level, natural ecosystems provide human society with food, fuel. Such processes have been estimated to be trillions of dollars annually. Habitat loss is the cause of both species extinctions and ecosystem service decline. The two ways to reverse trend of habitat loss are conservation of currently viable habitat and restoration of degraded habitats. The fundamental difference between restoration and other conservation efforts is analogous to the difference between disease prevention and treatment, conservation attempts to maintain and protect existing habitat and biodiversity, whereas restoration attempts to reverse existing environmental degradation and population declines. Targeted human intervention is used to promote habitat, biodiversity recovery, the possibility of restoration, however, does not provide an excuse for converting extremely valuable pristine habitat into other uses, as in medicine, it better to prevent than to treat. Though restoration ecologists and other conservation biologists generally agree that habitat is the most important locus of biodiversity protection, conservation biology as an academic discipline is rooted in population biology. Because of that, it is organized at the genetic level. Restoration ecology is organized at the community level, looking at specific ecosystems, conservation biologys focus on rare or endangered species limit the number of manipulative studies that can be performed. As a consequence, conservation studies tend to be descriptive, comparative, however, the highly manipulative nature of restoration ecology allows the researcher to test the hypotheses vigorously. Restorative activity often reflects an experimental test of what limits populations, Restoration ecology draws on a wide range of ecological concepts. Disturbance is a change of environmental conditions, which interferes with the functioning of a biological system, disturbance, at a variety of spatial and temporal scales, is a natural component of many communities. Humans have had limited natural impacts on ecosystems for as long as humans have existed, however, understanding and minimizing the differences between modern anthropogenic and natural disturbances is crucial to restoration ecology

12.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network

13.
Castro Creek
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Castro Creek is a creek in Richmond, California in the western part of the city adjacent to the Chevron Oil Refinery. Wildcat Creek drains into it directly and though other Wildcat Marsh tributaries into Castro Cove of San Pablo Bay, the creek drains from the drainage basin of the surrounding area and was once part of the channel that separated the island of Point Richmond with the mainland. The stream is waterway is named after Don Víctor Castro the owner of the area when it was Rancho San Pablo, the Chevron Richmond Refinery dumps wastewater into the creek routinely 500 yards north of the confluence with Wildcat Creek and also in a drainage. Other waste may only be dumped into the creek through a ditch on Castro Street during high intensity rainfall. Castro Creek is a fishing, shell-fishing, and recreation area and its estuarine habitat is essential habitat for several endangered species. The creek is also a spawning and migration center. Castro Cove has become polluted from 85 years of unbridled discharge of waste waters with PAHs. Castro Cove Cerrito Creek - marked the border of Castros ranch List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area

14.
Cerrito Creek
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Cerrito Creek is one of the principal watercourses running out of the Berkeley Hills into San Francisco Bay in northern California. It is significant for its use as a boundary demarcation historically, in the early 19th century, it separated the vast Rancho San Antonio to the south from the Castro familys Rancho San Pablo to the north. Today, it part of the boundary between Alameda County and Contra Costa County. The main stem, running through a canyon that separates Berkeley from Kensington, is joined below San Pablo Avenue by a fan of tributaries. The largest of these is Middle or Blackberry Creek, a southern branch, the creek is named for Albany Hill, formerly called Cerrito de San Antonio, a prominent isolated hill on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay in Albany. Cerrito Creek, joined by a fan of other small creeks, the creek played a part in history larger than its size. Because it divided the two land-grant ranches, it became the division between Alameda and Contra Costa Counties and this lasted until a post-World-War-II reform movement in the City of El Cerrito. The marsh at the mouth also played a curious bit part in history. Regarding such wetlands as useless, 19th and 20th Century settlers set out to fill it, locating a slaughterhouse, an early 20th Century typhoid scare, however, led to closing of the dump. This left Berkeley, booming with new residents after the great San Francisco earthquake, a new dump south of the hill was quickly arranged, in what is now the City of Albany. Women of that area were upset, but they lacked the vote. One morning, they sought to back the garbage wagon with guns. The marsh was eventually filled—rubble from dynamite making and quarrying on Albany Hill contributed. In 1953, the head of Stege Sanitary District wrote, “As late as 1920, records show a lake bordered by marsh south of County Road No.4 now Central, near Belmont. ”Tides still rise and fall inland as far as Albanys and El Cerritos Creekside Parks. When a high tide coincides with winter storm runoff, the marsh area can flood. Volunteers with this group have worked since 1996 on this and other creeks, principally removing invasives, planting natives. The City of El Cerrito is committed to a plan to daylight the still-culverted reaches of the creek at the south edge of El Cerrito Plaza. The cities of Albany and El Cerrito have adopted a plan for a pedestrian-bicycle route mostly along the creek

15.
San Pablo Creek
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San Pablo Creek is an 18. The creek runs from the southeast to the northwest, originating near Orinda and it drains one of the largest watersheds in the East Bay, comprising some 41 square miles. The creek has 34 named tributaries, the creek was dammed in 1919, forming the San Pablo Reservoir. Briones Reservoir, constructed in 1964, dams the Bear Creek tributary, the East Bay Municipal Utility District gets less than 10% of its water from the creek. The creek is helped by community organizations. The city of San Pablo has organized cleanups, as has the Friends of Orinda Creeks, the San Pablo Watershed Neighbors Education and Resources Society goes further than just garbage and weed cleanups and includes restoration efforts and watershed studies. SPAWNERS has built and maintained a creek bank restoration site and California native plant demonstration gardens at the El Sobrante Library adjacent to downtown El Sobrante since 2000. SPAWNERS also maintains a creek re-vegetation site at the El Sobrante Boys, the damming of the creek has limited threatened steelhead spawning sites but has allowed it to continue to survive there. Native Ohlone shell mounds were found along the creek, especially near San Pablo Bay. The San Pablo Canyon through which the flows was in the early 19th century an open grazing area shared by adjoining Mexican ranch owners. In the latter years of the 19th century, a narrow gauge railroad, the line through the canyon was abandoned upon the acquisition of the California and Nevada by the Santa Fe Railroad. List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area San Pablo Creek -- Guide to San Francisco Bay Area Creeks SPAWNERS, San Pablo Watershed Neighbors Education and Resources Society

16.
Wildcat Creek (California)
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In 1772, the first recorded Spanish expedition crossed Wildcat Creek, although the Spaniards may have traveled this far north as early as 1769. The 1772 Fages and 1776 de Anza expeditions received festive greetings at two villages along Wildcat Creek, one of which was estimated at 100 –200 people in size. Within three decades, nearly all the native Huchiun had been forced to move to Mission Dolores, on an 1830 diseño of the Rancho San Pablo Wildcat Creek appears as Arroyo Seco. Later it was known as Arroyo Chiquito. An 1861 map indicates that Wildcat Creek was called Little San Pablo Creek then, big San Pablo Creek is located in the next drainage east of the drainage of Wildcat Creek. There are over fifty geographic place names in California with the word wildcat, the Wildcat Creek watershed drains 11.1 square miles. The creek originates on Vollmer Peak in Tilden Regional Park just east of the city of Berkeley and it feeds the artificial Lake Anza as well as the smaller reservoir Jewel Lake along its course. In its lower course, it passes through the city of San Pablo, where it exits the hills, it passes through Alvarado Park, which includes a WPA-constructed stone arch bridge over the creek. It also courses through San Pablos civic center and Davis Park, Wildcat Creek culminates in the 387 acre Wildcat Marsh and thence to San Pablo Bay. The Wildcat San Pablo Creeks Watershed Council won the Governors Environmental, founded in 1985, it is the oldest, continuing running urban watershed council in California. In 2004, the Wildcat San Pablo Watershed Council began work on the Wildcat Creek Watershed Restoration Plan, in April,2010, the plan was published and addressed three goals,1. Reduce flood risk based on Wildcat Creek’s 100-year flood flows and improve stormwater management in low-lying neighborhoods, enhance riparian habitat, specifically focused on stream resident coastal rainbow trout and the potential restoration of anadromous steelhead migration. Develop recreational resources for the community, specifically a fully connected two-mile Wildcat Creek Trail through the City, in September 2010 the City of San Pablo announced that it had received a $1.8 million grant from the state Department of Water Resources to clean up Wildcat Creek. Wildcat Creek supported a steelhead run historically, but degradation of habitat, the dams that form both of these artificial lakes Lake Anza and Jewel Lake are impassable barriers to spawning steelhead. In September 1983, the East Bay Regional Park District planted 615 steelhead from Redwood Creek into Wildcat Creek between Alvarado Park and the University of California Botanic Gardens at Berkeley and this re-introduction has been successful with steelhead reproducing in the creek below Jewel Lake. According to CEMAR’s San Francisco Estuary Watersheds Evaluation of 2007, only 5.1 miles of the watershed’s total 22.22 miles of channel is suitable and available to steelhead. The fish have also spotted in Tilden Regional Park in the Berkeley Hills near the parks merry-go-round. A second native fish, the three-spined stickleback thrives in the creek and its tributaries

17.
Breuner Marsh
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A habitat restoration plan for 60 acres of wetlands and 90 acres of California coastal prairie was subsequently approved. The boundaries surrounding Breuner Marsh are approximately, San Pablo Bay to the west, giant Marsh and Point Pinole Regional Shoreline Park to the north. A Southern Pacific Railroad embankment and Parchester Village to the east, the Breuner Marsh land was owned by Fred Parr in the mid 20th-century. It was/is located between the bay and Parchester Village, a post-WW II master planned community that was the first in the state to sell to African Americans and it was built by Parr with the promise of maintaining the marsh free from development. However, Parr subsequently sold it off, leaving the open space in uncertainty. The new owner was Gerald Breuner, the owner of the former Breuners Home Furnishings chain, during the 1970s he had much of the wetlands illegally destroyed, with the intention of building a private general aviation airport, to be called Breuner Field. However community and political opposition prohibited it, and the model plane airfield was the largest he could build. In the 1980s Bruener tested experimental aircraft, a gyrocopter, at the site, Breuner Field or Breuner Airfield was a 5-acre private radio controlled aircraft airfield or flying field and club built in the 1970s. It was located on the illegally reclaimed wetlands, at 4114 Goodrick Avenue, the site had a sports club, some cottages, and a fishing pier. The runway was about 300 ft and is marked with xs to state that it is not suitable for landing by any planes and it was run by the Bay Area Radio Control Society. Breuner Marsh was purchased in 2000 by Bay Area Wetlands LLC, since the purchase by Bay Area Wetlands LLC, various proposals to develop the marsh have been put forward. The latter was the option from the Parchester Village Neighborhood Council which had fought development in the past. Development was also fought by the Sierra Club and the North Richmond Shoreline Open Space Alliance, and by Gayle McLaughlin, the East Bay Regional Parks District had considered using Eminent Domain to prevent development of the rare undeveloped San Francisco Bay shoreline and to protect endangered species. Bay Area Wetlands LLC at one point wanted to build Edgewater Technology Park but were rebuffed by Parchester residents, the city was willing to zone 27 acres for residential but no more. A lawsuit was filed against the property owners to protect the space. The jury decided that the value of the 217 acres was $6.85 million and this was contrary to the East Bay Regional Parks Districts appraiser whom valued it at $1.5 million, and the previous purchase price the Breuners received of $3 million. The defendant owners argued that the city would make up to $18 million off the 27 acres where development would be allowed, the owners were allowed to keep 20 acres, but appealed the March 2008 decision nonetheless. A sale was reached two months later for the undeveloped property

18.
Hoffman Marsh
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Hoffman Marsh is a wetlands on San Francisco Bay in Richmond, California. The marsh has been protected within Eastshore State Park, and adjacent to Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, the marsh is an important nesting ground for wildfowl and stopping ground on the Pacific Flyway, as it is one of only a handful of undestroyed wetlands in the Bay Area. It borders Point Isabel Regional Shoreline and Interstate 80, Hoffman Marsh is the delta for the mouth of Fluvius Innominatus creek into the Hoffman Channel, which lead to San Francisco Bay. The channel is part of Point Isabel Regional Shoreline, the largest dog park in the United States, Hoffman Channel is adjacent to Point Isabel promontory, and was formerly a sandy beach on its south shore. There was a proposal to add a 98,000 sq. ft. Kohls department store on a site between the Costco store and the marsh. This is in addition to birds that make overnight stopovers at the marsh that would also possibly decrease in number. The Richmond Annex Neighborhood Council officially opposed the project, Hoffman Marsh was saved from development, to be protected within Eastshore State Park. Habitat restoration plans are being developed, parks in Richmond, California Point Isabel Panoramic photo of Hoffman Marsh

19.
Point Molate Marsh
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Point Molate Marsh is a salt marsh on the western shoreline of the San Pablo Peninsula in Richmond, California. The area is environmentally valuable land as it is untouched and isolated from nearby urban development. The marsh was used as a Chinese shrimp camp. It is habitat to important endangered species, especially the Ridgways rail, harbor seals also make use of the marsh which is on San Francisco Bay. It is located between Point San Pablo and Point Molate

20.
San Pablo Reservoir
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The San Pablo Reservoir is an open cut terminal water storage reservoir owned and operated by the East Bay Municipal Utility District. It is located in the valley of San Pablo Creek, north of Orinda, California and south of El Sobrante and Richmond, the earthen San Pablo Dam, built in 1919, is located at the El Sobrante end of the reservoir, above Kennedy Grove. The reservoir has a capacity of 38,600 acre feet. A water tunnel runs under the hills to the west from the reservoir to a plant in Kensington. The San Pablo Dam Road runs along the west side of the reservoir, eBMUDs Briones Reservoir is in the hills southeast of the San Pablo Reservoir and drains into the reservoir. EBMUD owns and maintains the San Pablo Reservoir Recreation Area, which consists of boating and fishing access to the reservoir itself, EBMUD charges $7 for daily entrance into the park. The recreation area is managed under contract by Urban Parks Concessionaires and includes a restaurant and gift shop, there are picnic areas available, a children’s play area and a boat launch ramp. Because this reservoir is a facility for drinking water, swimming and wading are prohibited. Fishing, boating, and canoeing are allowed, however, to reduce the possibility of gasoline components in the reservoir, only four-cycle engines using MTBE-free gasoline are allowed. There is a 5 1⁄2 miles hiking and biking trail along the west side of the reservoir, most of this trail is on the Old San Pablo Dam Road, replaced in the 1950s by the current San Pablo Dam Road. It is not possible to circumnavigate the reservoir on hiking trails. Many anglers fish on the reservoir for smallmouth bass, white sturgeon, bluegill and crappie, along with the regularly planted trout, San Pablo Reservoir was the potential venue for the rowing and canoe races in the case that San Francisco would host the 2024 Summer Olympics. This would not have been the first time the reservoir would host a rowing regatta, starting May 2015 the Oakland Strokes organize the USRowing Southwest Masters Regional Championships on San Pablo. In October 2004, a commissioned by EBMUD concluded that a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault could cause the San Pablo Dam to settle as much as 35 feet. As a short-term measure, the District lowered the level by 20 feet to create a 35-foot buffer. The dam was seismically retrofitted without going out of commission by mixing concrete into the soil at the toe of the dam, besides that a new buttress layer has been added above that on the downstream side of the dam. Construction began August 2008 and was completed in September 2010, list of lakes in the San Francisco Bay Area EBMUD San Pablo Recreation Area website UPC San Pablo Recreation Area website EBMUD website EBMUD Trail Map North. U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, San Pablo Reservoir

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Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor
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Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor is an isolated marina and small community at the far end of Point San Pablo in San Pablo Bay, within Richmond, in Contra Costa County, California. The village is home to a few individuals living in hundreds of boats. The area also features the Point San Pablo Marina and Yacht Club, the village is also the starting point for visitors to East Brother Light Station a historic landmark. The hills surrounding the town are completely undeveloped and feature chaparral landscaping, the area is near the Chevron Richmond Refinery and some tank farm containers are visible in addition to the Richmond Landfill across the waters of Castro Cove, a contaminated estuarine habitat. Point San Pablo Beach is also located here, the village has panoramic views of the undeveloped coastlines of southern Napa, Sonoma, and Solano counties and eastern central Marin County. The hills surrounding the village are completely undeveloped and feature Eucalyptus trees, the isolation of the area and undeveloped lands make deer sightings commonplace. Other animals in the include the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. The areas around the marina and breakwaters have many egrets, herons, the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor is privately owned. Both the San Pablo Sportsmens Club and the Point San Pablo Preservation Society are non-profit organizations located at the harbor, the societys goal is to preserve the harbor and surrounding lands and waterways for public use and enjoyment. San Pablo Peninsula San Pablo Bay topics Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor website Google maps aerial view

22.
Port of Richmond (California)
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For other ports with similar names see, Port Richmond The Port of Richmond is a major shipping terminal in Californias San Francisco Bay. It ranks number one for ports of San Francisco Bay in vehicles, in addition to these the port can also handle dry-bulk, break-bulk, and containers. Seven of the terminals are city owned in addition to 5 dry-docks while there are 11 privately owned terminals from whence 90% of tonnage emerge, the port is served by a sophisticated rail network served by four major rail companies. The port itself has described as a boondoggle and as unprofitable, however in 2012 operations finally broke even. The port was constructed in the 1980s about thirty years after the World War II-era Kaiser Shipyards were decommissioned, in 1993 the port received 26,000,000 tons of goods. The majority of the cargo was oil and other petroleum products, the port is located at the end of Canal Boulevard in South Richmond. Port Richmond also receives imported cars and delivers them to dealers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the port is a major entry point for vehicles from Asia. The port signed a million dollar 15-year deal in 2010 to import Honda vehicles to the city after spending 37 million on upgrades in infrastructure from warehousing to rail lines. In 2011 the city signed a deal to bring in Subaru vehicles on a five-year, the port is currently flirting with Toyota and Chinese auto manufacturers to expand its unmet capacity. In 2012 controversy arose over a $4 million federal grant to build a new safety, the port authority itself supported redeveloping a decrepit former headquarters while influential councilmember Tom Butt preferred to refurbish the Riggers Loft building, a historic landmark. Butt countered that the preference is a terrible idea and that he would support anything else. The Riggers Loft building was eventually chosen On December 11,2011 the tug Tiger sank in the Port of Richmond Harbor, the Tiger was a decommissioned former US Navy tug that served during World War II. In 1944, modifications were made to the Tiger in order to hold more oil, although it is not known how much the tug Tiger could hold, it is estimated that its maximum capacity was about 78,000 gallons of oil. The Tiger was originally brought to the Port of Richmond in order to be cleaned before heading to be scrapped, as a result of the tug Tiger sinking, an unknown amount of oil was leaked into the port. The United States Coast Guard was called in, in order to clean up the oil, after the spill approximately 1,450 gallons of an oil-water mixture was collected from the Tiger. There are still continued efforts in order to clean up oil from the Tiger, in addition to this, another tug, the Lion, parked near the Tiger has an estimated 15,000 gallons of oil-water that have been collected from the vessel. Though it is if there remain issues with Lion, a protective barrier remains around it. Compared to other ports, Port of Oakland, Port of Long Beach, and Port of Los Angeles, the pollutants being measured are ROG, CO, NOx, PM, SO2, and CO2

23.
Richmond Ferry Terminal
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Richmond Ferry Terminal is a former ferry terminal located in the Marina Bay neighborhood of Richmond, California. Specifically, the terminal is located at Ford Point on the Richmond Inner Harbor which opens onto the East Bay of San Francisco Bay, Ford Point derives its name from the historic Ford Plant that is located nearby which is now being converted to an industrial park. The terminal hosted a commuter service to the San Francisco Ferry Building weekdays. The voyage took approximately 45 minutes one-way, the service began in 1999, but was discontinued in the late 2000s in the economic downturn following the dot-com bust. Ferry ridership plummeted and the service became economically unsustainable, which led Red, in fact the average ridership was 45 per trip and about 200 were needed for fiscal sustainability. The terminal had its own dedicated AC Transit feeder service from Point Richmond, planning meetings were held to reopen and remodel the terminal at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmonds Marina Bay. A public comment period found that there were concerns for walking distance between ferry and parking and also bicycle parking, an environmental review was ordered to last up to nine months. Funding was approved in 2015, with service expected to begin in 2018. In April 2016, the San Francisco Ferry building secured a $4 million federal grant, the funds will be used for construction, beginning in 2017, of new berths, to be ready for ferry service to Richmond beginning as early as 2018

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San Pablo Bay
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San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. San Pablo Bay was named after Rancho San Pablo, a Spanish land grant given to colonial Alta California settlers in 1815, the bay is approximately 10 mi across and has an area of approximately 90 sq mi. The bay is heavily silted from the contributions of the two rivers, which drain most of the Central Valley of California. All tributaries except for Sonoma Creek are commercially navigable and maintained by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, two peninsulas separate San Pablo Bay from San Francisco Bay. The eastern is in the City of Richmond and the western in the City of San Rafael, the bay is shared between Contra Costa county on the southern and eastern shore, and Solano, Sonoma and Marin counties on the northern and western shores. The county boundaries meet near the center of the bay, communities on the shores of San Pablo Bay include, Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo in Contra Costa County, Vallejo in Solano County, along with Novato and San Rafael in Marin County. Because the Bay is close to major and local airports. Because of its size but shallow waters, San Pablo Bay frequently has difficult boating conditions. There are many undeveloped shore lands with salt marshes and mudflats, the Bay is a primary wintering stop for the canvasback duck population on the Pacific Flyway, as well as a migratory staging ground for numerous species of waterfowl. Much of the shore of the bay is protected as part of the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Endangered species that are found in the bay include the California brown pelican, California clapper rail and this is a popular destination for recreation fishing, with Saltwater species including, striped bass, surfperch, sturgeon, starry flounder, leopard shark, topsmelt, and anchovy. In the 1880s there was a village, where some 500 Chinese people lived. The location is now part of China Camp State Park, San Pablo Bay is the setting of alternative rock band Primuss four-part song series Fishermans Chronicles, and is also referenced in The Toys Go Winding Down and Harold of the Rocks. It is also mentioned in The Minus 5 song John Barleycorn Must Live, provides a brief history of the marshes of San Pablo Bay

25.
Berkeley Hills
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The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the Contra Costa Range/Hills, but with the establishment of Berkeley and the University of California, the Berkeley Hills are bounded by the major Hayward Fault along their western base, and the minor Wildcat fault on their eastern side. The highest peaks are Vollmer Peak, Grizzly Peak and Round Top, an extinct volcano, Vollmer Peak was named for the first police chief of the City of Berkeley, August Vollmer. It was formerly known as Bald Peak, from the top on a clear winter day Davis, Sacramento and the snowy Sierra are visible. Much of the west slope of the Berkeley Hills has residential neighborhoods of single family homes. Most streets are narrow and tend to follow the contours of the land, other roads to the ridgeline wind their way up the canyons. Grizzly Peak and Skyline Blvds follow the top of the ridge, the east slope of the Berkeley Hills is mostly preserved or partially developed wildland, much of it owned by the East Bay Regional Park District and the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve, and Temescal Regional Park are lower on the western slopes while Las Trampas Regional Wilderness is lower on the slope above Danville. The Berkeley Hills are pierced by several tunnels, two are aqueducts of EBMUD, the Berkeley Hills Tunnel serves the Pittsburg/Bay Point–SFO/Millbrae line of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. The four bores of the Caldecott Tunnel carry State Highway 24 between Oakland and Contra Costa County and it is common to hear the term, Oakland Hills to refer to that section of the Berkeley Hills that runs along the east side of Oakland. In colloquial usage, the Oakland hills are south of Claremont Avenue or Highway 24, as a proper name or recognized toponym, it is technically incorrect. When used on maps, the south end of the Berkeley Hills is unclear. It does not, in any case, correspond to any political boundaries, the ridge extends south through Oakland and San Leandro to the drainage of San Leandro Creek called Castro Valley, and geologically, continues southward above the line of the Hayward Fault. In the section above East Oakland to Castro Valley, the ridge appears on most maps as the San Leandro Hills, the eastern slopes of the Berkeley Hills lie entirely outside of the city of Berkeley within Contra Costa County. Another common usage is East Bay Hills, but its application to any particular range is unclear and it may refer to all of the ranges east of the Bay, from the Berkeley Hills to the Diablo Range and all the ranges between. The Berkeley Hills affect the climate by their elevation. The oceanic marine layer, which develops during the summer, bringing fog and low clouds with it, is less than 2,000 feet deep. This produces a fog shadow effect to the east, which is warmer than areas west of the hills, especially cold storms occasionally deposit wet snow on the peaks

26.
Brooks Island
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Brooks Island is a 75-acre, mostly flat strip of land extending from a round hill which peaks at 160 ft in San Francisco Bay, located just south of the Richmond Inner Harbor in Richmond, California. The rock that forms the peak of the island is radiolarian chert underlain by limestone. All these rocks are part of the Franciscan Assemblage, the range as Albany Hill,3 miles south. The main portion of the covers a area of approximately 47 acres. A short distance from the southwest coast of the island is Bird Rock or Bird Island. The sandspit that extends for two miles west of the main island formed along a breakwater that was installed in the 1920s to preserve a deepwater channel to the Richmond Inner Harbor. During the last ice age San Francisco Bay was a valley, as sea level rose, the valley was flooded and Brooks Island was cut off from the rest of the East Bay. Although the island is small, there is a permanent spring. The island hosts salt marshes, tidal flats and has a rise of 160 ft and it is home to many bird species, including herons and egrets, and provides their nesting sites. Some parts of the islands are off limits to visitors to protect nesting sites, other names for the island include, Isla de Cármen, Rocky Island, Bird Island, and Sheep Island. Brooks Island is a habitat for harbor seals that stop at the island from their nearby rookery on the Castro Rocks, the first archeological excavation on Brooks Island was conducted by Nels Nelson of UC Berkeley in 1907. Coles estimates that the Ohlone occupation of the site may date more than 3,000 years. His study found bones from cormorants, ducks and other waterbirds, marine mammal bones included harbor seals, sea lions, porpoises and whales. These early residents used atlatls and harpoons with bone points, even though the mound showed evidence of large catches of fish, especially herring, there were no fishhooks found, indicating that perhaps nets were used. Mollusks such as mussels, oysters, and clams were a portion of the diet. Coless research showed that the use of the island was stable over a long period, kent Lightfoot of UC Berkeley is reanalyzing Coless material to determine whether seasonal patterns can be identified. The latest carbon-14 date from the material is about 300 years ago. Juan Manuel de Ayala conducted the first nautical survey of San Francisco Bay in 1775, however, Spanish records from that period do not mention any settlement on the island

27.
Castro Rocks
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The rocks are named after Don Víctor Castro a local rancho-era land owner. Castro Rocks are the home of many harbor seals, which lie on them to rest, the rocks are the largest harbor seal rookery in the northern San Francisco Bay and the second largest in the Bay Area itself. There are also sometimes sea lions on the rocks, the rocks Harbor Seals also frequent Mowry Slough, Brooks Island, Yerba Buena Island, and Mare Island. The seals at this location have high levels of pollutants including the DDT, PCBs, PBDEs, PFOS, PFOA. Castro Rocks page SFSU Tagging - Photos

28.
East Brother Island Light
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East Brother Island Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on East Brother Island in San Rafael Bay, near the tip of Point San Pablo in Richmond, California. It marks the entrance to San Pablo Bay from San Francisco Bay, built in 1874 and automated in 1969, the lighthouse was designed in the American Stick style by Paul J. The former keepers house began operating as a bed and breakfast in 1980 and offers guests a unique, day visitors may come to the island for a small fee to hang out and enjoy the vistas. Although the U. S. government recognized the need for a light to mark the area, instead the government turned its attention to the island, which it already owned. Large-scale blasting leveled the island off, and the keepers house was built with the attached tower. The lamp was first lit on March 1,1874, the light tower is attached to keeper’s house, a two-story Victorian placed on a blasted away 1-acre rock. There was an assistant keeper’s house, equipment building, cistern, the water cistern was blasted to a depth of 30 feet and is capable of holding 50,000 US gallons of rain water. Two of the most notable lighthouse keepers were John Stenmark and Willard Miller, each of whom logged twenty years of service, originally from Sweden, Stenmark joined the lighthouse service at age twenty and distinguished himself for bravery during a boating accident. He was eventually appointed keeper at East Brother in 1894, and he lived at the station with his wife, Miller began his tenure at East Brother in 1922. During his service the light was upgraded to a fixed, fifth-order Fresnel lens, the steam fog signal was also converted to a compressor-driven diaphone. A serious accident on March 4,1940 resulted in a fire destroyed the islands wharf. The United States Lighthouse Service ran the operation until 1939. They had to light the original lens wick and keep it filled with whale oil, on many foggy nights, they would have to fire up the steam boilers to drive the foghorns, hauling coal up the long ramp from the boat. After the lighthouse was automated, the government wanted to tear down the house and other buildings. The lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, after several years of neglect, a non-profit group, East Brother Light Station, Inc. was formed in 1979 to restore the landmark. Government grants, private donations, and volunteer labor restored the structures on the island, F. United States Coast Guard Historians Office. East Brother, CA at LighthouseFriends. com East Brother Light Station at www. us-lighthouses. com East Brother Island Light at the National Register of Historic Places

29.
Keller Beach
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Kellar Beach is a public beach on the San Francisco Bay in Richmond, California. The beach is located in the Point Richmond District at Miller/Knox Regional Park in southwestern Richmond and it is accessible by car and by a 66-foot walk from an AC Transit line 72M bus stop. The beachs amenities include bathrooms, parking, picnic tables, there is no lifeguard on duty. The site is located at the corners of Dornan Drive and Western Drive on land, in February 2010, a mass invasion of herring to the bay caused a convergence of ducks, gulls, seals and cormorants that hasnt been seen in over three decades at the beach. With a short walk to the end there are some great fishing spots

Restoration ecology emerged as a separate field in ecology in the 1980s. It is the scientific study supporting the …

Recently constructed wetland regeneration in Australia, on a site previously used for agriculture

Rehabilitation of a portion of Johnson Creek, to restore bioswale and flood control functions of the land which had long been converted to pasture for cow grazing. The horizontal logs can float, but are anchored by the posts. Just-planted trees will eventually stabilize the soil. The fallen trees with roots jutting into the stream are intended to enhance wildlife habitat. The meandering of the stream is enhanced here by a factor of about three times, perhaps to its original course.

Ecosystem restoration for the superb parrot on an abandoned railway line in Australia

Coyote Creek (lower right) where it flows into the south San Francisco Bay, with the Guadalupe River joining it via the Alviso Slough, and the Guadalupe Slough entering just to the west (left). The pond between the meandering sloughs, on the left, is Salt Pond A8.